of
the romantic school, it is as a classicist that he must be ranked among
modern musicians. From the beginning of his career until its close, his
ideas were clothed by preference in the forms which had sufficed for
Beethoven, and the instances in which he departed from structural
precedent are so rare that they might be disregarded, were they not of
such high value that they must be considered as the signs of a logical
development of musical form, and not as indicating a spirit of rebellion
against existing modes of structure. His practice, more frequent in
later than in earlier life, of welding together the "working-out" and
the "recapitulation" sections of his movements in a closer union than
any of his predecessors had attempted, is an innovation which cannot
fail to have important results in the future; and if the skill of
younger writers is not adequate to such a display of ingenuity as occurs
in the finale of the fourth symphony, where the "passacaglia" form has
been used with an effect that is almost bewildering to the ordinary
listener, that at least stands as a monument of inventiveness finely
subordinated to the emotional and intellectual purport of the thoughts
expressed. His themes are always noble, and even from the point of view
of emotional appeal their deep intensity of expression is of a kind
which grows upon all who have once been awakened to their beauty, or
have been at the pains to grasp the composer's characteristics of
utterance. His vocal music, whether for one voice or many, is remarkable
for its fidelity to natural inflection and accentuation of the words,
and for its perfect reflection of the poet's mood. His songs, vocal
quartets and choral works abound in passages that prove him a master of
effects of sound; and throughout his chamber music, in his treatment of
the piano, of the strings, or of the solo wind instruments he employs,
there are numberless examples which sufficiently show the irrelevance of
a charge sometimes brought against his music, that it is deficient in a
sense of what is called "tone-colour." It is perfectly true that the
mere acoustic effect of a passage was of far less importance to him than
its inherent beauty, poetic import, or logical fitness in a definite
scheme of development; and that often in his orchestral music the casual
hearer receives an impression of complexity rather than of clearness,
and is apt to imagine that the "thickness" of instrumentation is the
res